


Of All the Ways to Fall

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Missing Scene, Natasha Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Pre-Relationship, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers Feels, implied Bruce Bannner/Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 10:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3932605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If one more person tried to tell Steve he was going about it wrong, he thought he might explode. Natasha had made her choice. Why couldn't anyone else accept that? (Lots of spoilers for Age of Ultron)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of All the Ways to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> So this started out being written for a porn battle using the prompt "We were built to fall apart, then fall back together" (Taylor Swift, 'Out of the Woods') but then it became all plot and no porn. Which, really, is quite sad. I wouldn't necessarily call it a fix-it fic, but I would call it pretty much my headcanon for what happened between Cap2 and AoU and thereafter. ~~Because, come on, they are perfect for each other, and no one is going to tell me otherwise.~~

Sam was the first to call him an idiot.

He came up beside him during the party at the tower, arms crossed, looking dismayed. “Man, seriously,” he said, and he sounded almost disappointed. “You’re just going to stand here and _let_ her flirt with Banner?”

It was Steve’s turn to cross his arms in dismay. “She can do whatever the heck she wants to do,” he said, his voice a little tight. “In case you haven’t noticed, she doesn’t need my permission.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Don’t start.” He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with this right now. On the other side of the room, Natasha looked like she was about to fall over the bar into Banner’s lap. Or maybe just tackle him in a steamy kiss. Neither of those being anything Steve wanted to see.

A surge of resentment soared up inside him, and he clenched his fist to contain it. What he had just told Sam was the truth. He had no right to her. He had no right to feel _anything_ toward her …

Beside him, Sam apparently didn’t get the message. “You’re in love with her,” he said, like he was just spouting nothing more than a simple fact.

Steve whipped his head back to him. “Not anymore,” he almost snapped, “And what does that matter anyway, if she could care less?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You keep saying that.”

“She’s in love with you too.”

Steve almost felt an urge to punch him. To punch Sam. His best friend at the moment. Instead he turned back around and focused on Natasha and Bruce, on the way she was _smiling_ at him, like a guy who could turn into a green rage monster was going to kiss her and give her the key to live happily ever after.

“She has a funny way of showing it,” Steve said, not even bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“Seriously?” Sam said, and now he sounded like he was the one being annoyed. “You know her. You know what she does. _This_ is what she does.”

Steve shook his head. “All I know,” he said quietly, “is I asked her to stay, I asked her to _try_ — I didn’t ask her to marry me. I didn’t even ask her be my girlfriend! I just asked her to try — and she told me no.”

_“We could make this work.” He looked down at her, her head on his chest, red hair everywhere, felt her arms wrapped around him, her legs tangled in his. He felt safe with her. He felt _whole_ with her. _

_She lifted her head, looked directly into his eyes — and broke his heart._

_“No, we couldn’t,” she said. “You and I. We could never work.”_

Steve closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand over his face. She’d kept coming back, even after she’d left them at Fury’s fake gravesite. He and Sam would come home from working out, from trips to the store, and there she would be, curled up on the couch in the living room or perched on the table in the kitchen eating cereal directly from the box. Sometimes she’d sneak into bed with him in the middle of the night.

It’d been weeks before he’d kissed her, then weeks more until it went further. He’d told Sam it didn’t mean anything, it was just a form of comfort, of making the loss of everything they had known more bearable, of making the dead ends in his search for Bucky less painful.

It had meant nothing. Until it had meant everything

And then she was gone. She told him no, kissed him softly, fell asleep in his arms — and she was gone in the morning. He didn’t see her again until he moved into the tower.

Now she was a teammate, nothing more. Even if most times it hurt to look at her, even if he could only call her Romanoff, not Natasha, not Nat. Definitely not Nat.

Beside him, Sam sighed, placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I’m not a psychiatrist,” he said, “but I’m telling you she’s just scared.”

Steve scoffed. “She’s scared to love _me_ , but getting into a relationship with the Hulk is okay?” Steve almost laughed. “You’re funny.”

“It’s true.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Sam said, “because she knows nothing will ever happen with Banner.”

Steve shook his head. “No,” he said. “She just doesn’t want me. And it’s okay, Sam.” 

He looked over at Natasha and Bruce, just in time to see Natasha saunter off. He turned back to Sam. “In fact, maybe I should go give Banner some advice. Make sure he doesn’t mess this up.”

He glanced at Banner again. Sure, the guy’s inner monster had horrible anger management issues, but Natasha deserved to be happy, didn’t she? And Banner was a decent guy, the Hulk withstanding. 

Steve heard Sam mumble “You’re an idiot” again, but by then he was already halfway across the room.

•••

Clint was the second person to tell him he was an idiot, although Steve suspected it was really Laura who ordered her husband to convey that message. He was out in the yard, chopping wood, working out the frustrations arguing with Tony had not been able to work out.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the vision the twin had given him, how he had missed his chance with Peggy, how the life he had once wanted was gone forever. And worse than that, he couldn’t stop thinking about Natasha. Not just the way she felt when he held her in his arms or the way her lips fit against his, but the way she smiled and the way she laughed and the way she used to tease him. The way she told him she couldn’t be his friend but then became the best one he had.

That was gone now, too. He had tried, on the quinjet back, to talk to her. Whatever she had seen had hit her hard. He could see it in her eyes. But she had just turned away from him, shutting him out. 

He tried one more time, when they arrived. Stopped her in the hallway on the way to the bathroom. 

“I just want to know if you’re okay,” was all he’d said.

“Get out my way, Rogers,” was all she’d answered, and she’d pushed by him like she didn’t care he was there. An hour later, he saw her talking to Banner, their heads close together. That had told him everything he needed to know.

“You’re an idiot.” Clint’s voice came out of nowhere, startling Steve so much he started, almost dropping the ax. Clint shook his head. “So much for those keen observation skills,” he said.

Steve picked the ax back up and narrowed his eyes at the other man. “I thought this was a safe house. I don’t need to be on alert.”

“We’re Avengers. We always need to be on alert.”

“Are you the team captain now?”

Clint didn’t answer, just smiled and took a seat on a pile of already-chopped logs just to Steve’s right side. He templed his fingers and watched Steve as he began to chop again.

“If you let her keep pushing you away, you’ll never get her back,” he finally said.

Steve didn’t stop chopping. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” Clint said.

Steve cut a branch in half in one fell swoop. He wondered if Sam had said something to Clint. Though that would have been ridiculous. Sam wouldn’t betray him like that. Was it that obvious, the way he felt about her? Or maybe it was something else …

He put the ax down and frowned at Clint. “What did she tell you?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Well, did she tell you it was her decision?” Steve’s voice — and his chest — felt tight. “She made her choice. She picked him.”

“She doesn’t want Banner. Not really.”

Steve caught his eye. “Did she tell you that?” 

Clint didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. 

“I didn’t think so,” Steve said. 

“Nat’s stubborn,” Clint said. “I know that. You know that. She gets an idea in her head, and she goes with it. Even if it’s the wrong idea.”

“Barton, what are you saying?” 

Clint smiled at him, an almost wistful sort of smile. Then he stood up, stuffed his hands in his pockets. “We have this team leader,” he said, “who believes that good things are worth fighting for. That good people are worth fighting for. But the one flaw this team leader has? He sometimes takes people at their word and doesn’t always look below the surface.”

Steve narrowed his yes. “Great,” he said sarcastically. “So you’re saying I’m naïve.”

“I’m saying right now, you’re being an idiot.” Clint turned around to go. Steve raised the ax again, having a strong desire to slice a few things open.

Halfway back to the house, Clint stopped and looked back at Steve. “By the way,” he called, “I told her she was being an idiot, too.”

The ax fell from Steve’s hand. He turned around a punched a hole through one of the pieces of wood instead.

•••

The third person to call him an idiot of course had to be Nick Fury himself.

Steve was in the medical bay of the hellicarrier, sitting with Natasha, who had finally fallen asleep. It had taken orders from Steve and Fury and Maria, and a strongly worded suggestion from Clint, to get her to go get checked out by a doctor after Banner turned off the comms in his quinjet. Steve had a feeling she had been two seconds away from stealing a jet of her own to go after him to who knows where, but when she had taken her first step after the link to Banner was broken, she had swayed, and that was all it took to have four people insisting.

After all, she’d been locked in a cage for a couple of days (something that Steve was trying really hard not to think about) and been knocked down pretty good by one of the explosions, and there had been an awful lot of fighting. It was easy for the rest of them to be knocked about and be okay — Clint nonwithstanding but he’d been checked over too — but Natasha was entirely human, a fact that did not ever escape Steve for very long.

The doctors said she was fine, if not a little dehydrated and in need of food, but they said they wanted to keep her for observation the rest of the journey home. She protested, but the fact that she was now sleeping, curled on her side, her mouth open slightly, just proved that everything had gotten to her, at least a little.

Fury’s hand on his shoulder made Steve jump, but he kept quiet. 

“How’s she doing?” Fury asked, taking a seat beside Steve without asking. Not that Fury had to, or did, ever ask for anything.

“She’s fine.”

“I thought so.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because you’re sitting here watching over her like she’s a lost puppy.”

Steve blinked at that, then flushed. “Oh,” he said. He started to get to his feet. “I should go then …”

Fury’s hand on his arm stopped him. Steve sank back down and looked at the man, who was staring at him intently.

“What’s going on between you and Natasha?” Fury said.

Steve did not expect that question. “Nothing,” he said instantly.

Fury raised a brow. “She went missing. For two days.”

“Yes …”

“She’s your teammate.”

“Yes …” Steve had no idea where this was going, but he felt a hint of dread begin to curl in his stomach. 

“I hear getting her back was not exactly your first priority.”

Steve’s defensive instincts crept in as if on autopilot. “No,” he said, “saving the world from a psychotic robot was my first priority. As it should be.”

Fury leveled his eyes to meet Steve’s. “Says the man who couldn’t kill the Winter Soldier.”

Steve glared. “What does one have to do with the other?”

“I’m just saying,” Fury said, “you’re Captain America. You always put people first. But the woman you love — and yes, I know you love her — goes missing and you act like you don’t care.”

Steve sucked in a breath, a million thoughts running through his brain, the urge to fight back, to argue, to ask how Fury knew any of that, to ask who told him, to mention that isn’t that what Fury always wanted anyway, the mission before the people?

But instead he didn’t say any of it. Instead, he let the guilt settle over him, the horrible awful guilt he had pushed aside since she was taken — right from under his nose — the horrible awful guilt that would have paralyzed him if he hadn’t tried to pretend that it didn’t bother him.

“She’s strong,” he finally said. “She can handle herself. She wouldn’t want us to drop everything to rescue her.”

He didn’t say, “She told me she didn’t need me. I believed her.” He didn’t say, “She picked Banner over me. I let him find her.” He didn’t say, “If I had stopped for one second to think about what could be happening to her, I would have gone insane. So I didn’t.” He didn’t say, “I still love her. And I don’t know how to stop it.”

He didn’t need to say any of that. Fury just shook his head, and Steve had a horrible feeling he knew all of it anyway.

“For Captain America,” Fury said softly, “you’re a bit of an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “People keep saying that.”

•••

The final person to call Steve an idiot was himself.

It had been two weeks since he and Natasha had started training the new team of Avengers, since they had all moved into the base together, since they had all started learning to live together, to train together. Some days he could manage to convince himself that things were okay. Those were the days when Natasha smiled at him over breakfast or teased him about being an old man when she took him down during their sparring session.

Other days it was a lot harder to feel like anything good was left in the world. Those were the days he’d find her staring blankly into space, the days he’d tell himself it was because she missed Bruce — maybe because she loved him — the days the ache in his chest would grow so intense he thought it might kill him.

Today was one of those days. Someone — Steve thought it was Rhodey — made a joke about living on a deserted island while everyone was having lunch. Natasha got up and walked out. She didn’t come back.

Now Steve was pissed — at her for just leaving them, at Banner for leaving _her_ , at himself for still being resentful that she didn’t love him back. He found her up on the roof, her legs hanging over the edge, her head tilted back to look at the stars in the sky.

He walked up behind her and waited for her to react, but she didn’t move. He knew she knew he was there — Natasha always knew when someone was there — and in that second, the fact that she couldn’t even pretend to care set him off more than anything else had in the past two weeks.

“If you’re just going to spend all your time moping around because Banner didn’t want to run off and marry you, why don’t you just leave? No one needs you here.”

For a moment, Steve thought she was going to keep ignoring him. Nothing about her position changed. Until she was suddenly on her feet, charging straight at him with something that sounded akin to a growl. 

She leaped at him, her hands tightening around his neck, her legs locking around his waist. Her force knocked him backward, sent them both skidding across the roof. Before he could come to a stop, she was punching him, sharp blows aimed at his chest.

He grabbed her wrists, flipped them over, pinning her under him. She struggled, but it was nowhere near her usual strength — Steve knew she could get out from under him if she really wanted, but instead she settled for just kicking her heel into his back, her legs still wrapped around him.

He yanked her wrists over her head, held them with one hand, and grabbed an ankle with the other.

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you?” he shouted.

She tried to head butt him, but he saw it coming, twisted his head out of the way so she was met with only air, then let go of her ankle for a second to grab her chin and push her head backward. The back of her head met the ground harder than he meant for it to, and her eyes closed momentarily.

When she opened them, they looked glassy.

Instantly he let go of her wrists and her chin. She scrambled out from under him, shifting herself backward across the roof. She didn’t get very far, though, before she stopped.

Then she went limp, her whole body curling in on itself.

“Natasha!” Steve couldn’t help it. He was by her side in an instant, reaching for her. She lifted her head, and this time he could see wetness on her eyelashes. 

He felt like his heart had stopped. He’d only seen Natasha cry once before, and that was when she thought Fury was dead.

“Nat,” he whispered. He reached out, fingers curling gently into red strands. “Hey, I’m sorry. I know you miss Bruce. I know you …. love ….. him …” Even saying the words was painful, but he forced himself to go on. “I know it’s hard right now. When I lost …”

“No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She shook her head, tried again. “No. Don’t you get it?”

He frowned. “Don’t I get what?”

“I _don’t_ love him. Bruce. I don’t even want to date him. But he left. He disappeared, and he’s out there and we don’t know where he is and he’s blaming himself for everything. And it’s all my fault.” She met Steve’s eyes, then quickly looked away. 

He dropped his hand from her hair, rubbed his chin. Her words weren’t making any sense. He had seen her with him, he had watched them …

“What are you talking about?” he said.

Natasha let out a laugh, a quiet, almost bitter sound. “I’m so stupid,” she said. “I thought I could be _normal_.” She said the word like it had personally offended her. “I thought I could find a nice guy and go on a few dates and we could run off together, and everything would stop hurting. But now everything is so much worse.”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t understand. I saw you and Bruce …”

“It wasn’t real,” she said. “I wanted it to be real. I wanted it to be real so much.”

“But why?” Steve said. He was still having trouble following her.

Natasha shrugged, finding his eyes again. “Don’t you ever just wish you could be normal?” she said. She paused, then, “Do you realize I’ve never been on a real date in my life? At least not with someone who knew I was me.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to know what it was like.”

“So you picked Bruce?”

Natasha frowned. “He’s a nice guy,” she said.

“Who also turns into _the Hulk_. I don’t think that counts as normal.”

Her upper lip curved up. “Maybe I like bad boys.”

Steve looked away from her, biting his tongue to hold back a reply. There was something he wanted to say, but he didn’t know if he should. He turned back to her. She was watching him, her eyes still wide and teary.

He took a breath and threw caution to the wind. What the hell was there left to lose anyway? 

“I would have shown you what normal was,” he said, and he was almost surprised by how much the words hurt to say out loud. “I wanted to take you out on a date. You know that.”

It was Natasha’s turn to look away. “I know,” she whispered into the night air.

“But I was so horrible to be with, you decided to go try and play house with a guy who turns into a literal monster?” He hadn’t meant for the words to carry the pain he felt inside, but they did, and the ache in his chest was stringing too much for him to care if they stung her.

Her head whipped back around, her eyes even wider now. “I’m a monster too, Steve.”

The revelation hit him in the gut. He stared at her. “No, you’re not.”

“You don’t know who I am.”

“I know exactly who you are. In all the ways that matter.”

“Steve.” Her voice was pleading.

“Nat.”

She closed her eyes. “You’re too good for me.”

“I love you.” The words slipped out before he could help them. Her eyes flew open.

“Take that back.” It sounded like a plea. 

And then he got it. In one almost magically illuminating moment he got it. What Sam was trying to say. What Clint was trying to say. What Fury was trying to say.

“I am an idiot,” Steve whispered.

Natasha frowned. “What?”

“You love me,” he said. “That’s why you left. Because for all that you just proclaimed you wanted to be normal, actually being normal scares you. The thought that you could be happy scares you.” He waited a beat. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.

She shook her head. “I will hurt you.”

“No, you won’t.” He scooted closer to her, so his legs were against hers.

“I am not good enough for you.”

“That’s not your decision to make.” He lifted his hands, took her face between them.

“I don’t know how to be in a relationship.”

“Neither do I. We can learn together.” He stroked his fingers over her cheekbones, along her jaw.

“I’m scared.”

He pressed his lips to hers. “I’m terrified.”

She kissed him back. “I’m not sure I know how to love someone,” she said.

He dropped his arms from her face to wrap them around her waist, to pull her close against him. “That’s one thing I do know how to do,” he said. 

She pressed her cheek into his chest. “I might run,” she said.

He laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m faster than you.”

“Yeah,” she said, and she sighed almost contentedly. Steve smiled into her hair, and for the first time in a long time felt a flicker of hope begin to stir. “I guess it is.”


End file.
